Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is essential that forestry, particularly afforestation, is incorporated into the new environmental scheme proposed under Pillar 2 in the next five-year Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, programme. Last time around, participants in the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, were prohibited from planting their land during the five-year programme. If we are to have availability of land in the next five years of the CAP forestry programme, it is essential that the environmental scheme formulated in the next CAP provides farmers with afforestation measures that will allow them to qualify for that scheme. We have only reached 25% of our afforestation targets this year. Land available for afforestation has to be part of this new environmental scheme.

I also ask that the requirement for a thinning licence should be removed from the legislative process. Thinning is just a tool to get a crop to reach its correct maturity. It is ridiculous to have a requirement for a thinning licence. It is holding up the issuing of licences and further clogging a licensing system that is under pressure.

See this speech in context